August 12, 2013

Private and encrypted storage for Bitcoin? SpiderOak gives it a try!

Unfortunately, our testing has now concluded. We had a great response and plan to take bitcoin payment hopefully at the beginning of next year, but will be unable to integrate that into our system at this very moment. If you want a personal email notifying you when it is set up, please email erin[at]spideroak[dot]com. Thanks!

We at SpiderOak believe in privacy. And we believe in always pushing the bounds of privacy further and further into the Internet. To that end, we have made the decision to do a proof-of-concept around accepting Bitcoins as payment for SpiderOak service. As Bitcoin becomes a more ‘mainstream’ method of currency exchange, we thought it only natural to extend it’s concept to SpiderOak as another privacy promoting element.

For this initial test, we will be manually accepting payment for 100GB/1-year accounts. We are conducting this initial test to gauge interest and if the demand is present we will possibly implement an actual API-based Bitcoin payment system. This would of course enable anyone to make payment for their SpiderOak accounts with Bitcoins.

Our Trial Offering:

We offer a total of 25 x 100GB SpiderOak account upgrades for 1 year ($100 value) to customers wishing to use Bitcoin as payment.

The cost per 100GB account during this trial period will be 0.75 BTC (a 25% discount vs. Fiat)

To purchase a 100GB account upgrade, you need only email bitcoin@spideroak.com for your personal Bitcoin deposit address for the payment. Once payment is made, we will send you an email with an upgrade-code to use for the 100GB upgrade.

Ultimately this is our way of helping to support both the concept of privacy as well as promoting the Bitcoin community by proving that business are indeed taking Bitcoin seriously. We are eager and curious to hear feedback so please feel free to reach out to us anytime with additional reactions or thoughts.

Categories

Comments

This seems unwise.
With the government starting to get nervous about Bitcoin and serving National Security Letters on Secure Email companies forcing them to shut down (Lavabit) why tempt two sleeping giants at once.?

Just promise me that when they show up with the court order that your servers will all self destruct. No further explanation would be necessary.

If the government wants access to the user data it should get it from the user. If there is a search warrant then the government can have the excuse to search our personal files but if there is no search warrant what business is it of theirs?

these are great news and a great move for spideroak. the discount over fiat is also a good way to create momentum about this.
as for the concerns about future(?) US government pressure over the company, i think it is probably unavoidable with or without bitcoin payment options.

I do hope that until that happens, spideroak is able to accumulate enough of that other rare commodity called user trust. Open-sourcing the SO client would be a step towards that goal.

The only thing I don’t like about Bitcoin, is there’s no consumer protections. For example, say I pay with Bitcoins for an iPhone, but get sent an Android phone instead, or worst, I get sent nothing at all.

With Bitcoins there’s no charge-backs like with credit cards and no way to file a legal lawsuit, because Bitcoin is not a regulated currency, as defined by the US legal system.

I’m sure Bitcoin will be acknowledged and regulated in the near future, but until then, you better 100% trust the person/company on the receiving end of the transaction, or you might be SOL with no form of recourse or compensation.

That being said, I don’t think SpiderOak would attempt to swindle anyone, but I’m personally going to wait for Bitcoin to become regulated before I use it. Because I don’t trust anyone. ;)

That’s supposed to be the strength of Bitcoin: when you are paid, you know you are paid. If you want more consumer protection, for instance with a seller you don’t trust, you can always use an escrow: Bitcoin gives you the choice. And in any case, the law still applies. If the vendor is really a scammer, you can use the normal way of justice to get things right instead of just issuing a cowboy PayPal chargeback. Of course, if you buy things from an obscure remote part of the world, well, you know what to expect… It’s the price of cheapness…